MDwise Inc. has named a new President & CEO to lead the organization’s health plans, which cover more than 350,000 Hoosiers. Cesar D. Martinez, a seasoned entrepreneur and executive for health plans, will assume the role of President and CEO starting September 8, 2015.
Mr. Martinez has extensive experience in leading and running Medicare and Medicaid health plans for private/entrepreneurial plans as well as large publicly held plans. In 2010, he founded and launched Palmetto Physician Connections (PPC), a Greenville, South Carolina based Medicaid plan. PPC grew from 0 to 24,000 members in less than two years and has been the fastest growing Medicaid plan in the South Carolina Medicaid managed care program. By the end of 2012, Mr. Martinez sold PPC to one of the largest hospital systems in South Carolina. In 2013, Mr. Martinez created and launched a new health plan, Advicare, for the hospital system to which he sold PPC. He led the process and achieved a state-wide HMO license in South Carolina by the South Carolina Department of Insurance. Mr. Martinez also led the development of Advicare’s Medicare/Medicaid dual program, which was awarded one of four contracts in South Carolina to launch the new CMS dual Medicare/Medicaid health plan demonstration and led the achievement of Advicare’s NCQA accreditation by the end of 2014.
Prior to his experience in South Carolina, Mr. Martinez worked for Wellcare Health Plans Inc., a Medicaid and Medicare health plan. Mr. Martinez served as a Regional President in both Louisiana and Texas as well as Executive Director in both the Orlando and Tampa regions of Florida. Mr. Martinez also spent six years with D.C. Chartered Health Plan Inc. (Chartered) in Washington D.C. as the Vice-President of Medical Economics, Chief Operating Officer and President and CEO. As CEO of Chartered, he led and achieved Chartered’s NCQA accreditation as well. His educational background includes a B.A. from Houston Baptist University, and an M.B.A and M.P.A. from City University in Seattle, Washington.
MDwise Inc. is proud to have hired an executive with such extensive experience across health plans and notable achievements in his career. Mr. Martinez is a decisive leader with a proven ability to energize teams for high performance in all areas of a health plan and health care system. “MDwise has been a leader in Medicaid managed care for nearly two decades. Year in and year out, our leadership has delivered high quality products and services to our clients. Additionally, with the expansion of HIP 2.0 MDwise is well positioned to expand our quality services to hundreds of thousands of previously uninsured Hoosiers. Today we are delighted to announce Cesar Martinez as the incoming President and CEO of MDwise. Cesar is an accomplished leader who has built strong Medicaid managed care organizations across the country. He believes first and foremost in the mission that MDwise embodies – to provide access to compassionate, high quality, coordinated health care and education in the communities we serve – and he delivers on that promise by developing strong organizations that innovate and perform at high levels,” said Dan Sellers, Chairman, MDwise Board of Directors.
“The health care programs the MDwise team has developed in the service of some of the most vulnerable citizens in the State is extraordinary. To that end, I thank the Board, the prior CEO and her team for building such a great company. My family and I are tremendously excited to join such a great company and team as President and CEO. I know firsthand what these vulnerable citizens go through and how tough some of their lives are as I too was a beneficiary of government sponsored health and social service programs as a child. It is the greatest professional honor of my life to lead teams to help vulnerable and low-income families. Joining the MDwise team will allow me to fulfill my mission in life. The future and prospects are very bright for MDwise. My vision for the Company is to lead the growth and evolution of our programs, while expanding them to reach thousands of more children and their families in the State and the surrounding region to join the MDwise family,” said Mr. Martinez.
For more information about MDwise and MDwise Marketplace visit Mdwise.org
